Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
I copy this map, not to show how much more we know than poor Cosmos, but
because he taught that all around this habitable world there was yet
another world, adhering closely on all sides to the circumscribing walls
of heaven. "Upon the eastern side of this transmarine land he judges man
was created; and that there the paradise of gladness was located, such
as here on the eastern edge is described, where it received our first
parents, driven out of Paradise to that extreme point of land on the
sea-shore. Hence, upon the coming of the Deluge, Noah and his sons were
borne by the ark to the earth we now inhabit. The four rivers he
supposes to be gushing up the spouts of Paradise." They are depicted on
the above map: O is the Mediterranean Sea; P, the Arabian Gulf; L, the
Caspian Sea; Q, the Tigris; M, the river Pison; "and J, the land where
men dwelt before the Flood."
It will be observed that, while he locates Paradise in the east, he
places the scene of the Deluge in the west; and he supposes that Noah
came from the scene of the Deluge to Europe.
This shows that the traditions in the time of Cosmos looked to the west
as the place of the Deluge, and that after the Deluge Noah came to the
shores of the Mediterranean. The fact, too, that there was land in the
west beyond the ocean is recognized by Cosmos, and is probably a dim
echo from Atlantean times.
MAP OF EUROPE, AFTER COSMOS
The following rude cut, from Cosmos, represents the high mountain in the
north behind which the sun hid himself at night, thus producing the
alternations of day and night. His solar majesty is just getting behind
the mountain, while Luna looks calmly on at the operation. The mountain
is as crooked as Culhuacan, the crooked mountain of Atzlan described by
the Aztecs.
THE MOUNTAIN THE SUN GOES BEHIND AT NIGHT
CHAPTER V
THE DELUGE LEGENDS OF AMERICA.
"It is a very remarkable fact," says Alfred Maury, "that we find in
America traditions of the Deluge coming infinitely nearer to that of the
Bible and the Chaldean religion than among any people of the Old World.
It is difficult to suppose that the emigration that certainly took place
from Asia into North America by the Kourile and Aleutian Islands, and
still does so in our day, should have brought in these memories, since
no trace is found of them among those Mongol or Siberian populations
which were fused with the natives of the New World.... The attempts
that have been made to trace the origin of Mexican civilization to Asia
have not as yet led to any sufficiently conclusive facts. Besides, had
Buddhism, which we doubt, made its way into America, it could not have
introduced a myth not found in its own scriptures. The cause of these
similarities between the diluvian traditions of the nations of the New
World and that of the Bible remains therefore unexplained."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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